{"id":100727,"date":"2021-12-10T09:30:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=100727"},"modified":"2021-12-10T09:30:36","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:30:36","slug":"revealed-the-locations-of-australias-quarantine-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=100727","title":{"rendered":"

Revealed: The Locations of Australia\u2019s Quarantine Camps<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

By T.J. Coles<\/em>.
\nTOTT News<\/h3>\n

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In this article, TOTT News documents the names and locations of publicly-acknowledged COVID quarantine camps across Australia.<\/h6>\n

It does not include the names and addresses of hotels, motels, and animal centres currently being used\/planned for use because most are temporary camps.<\/p>\n

South Australia, for example, does not appear to have built any camps. Instead, it is temporarily using\u00a0hotels and resorts.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rather, this piece will cover permanent and semi-permanent nationwide compounds under construction or refurbishment of primary concern, and include army barracks and refugee\/immigrant holding facilities.<\/p>\n

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NATIONAL RESILIENCE CENTRES<\/h1>\n

At the time of writing, Tasmania uses\u00a0only hotels<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for quarantining humans. Several Australian quarantine stations, like Cape Pallarenda and Lytton, are heritage sites unsuitable for modern containment.<\/p>\n

According<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to the central government\u2019s review of hotel quarantine practices, in the Australian Capital Territory,\u00a0\u201cthe majority of quarantine is undertaken in a private home with appropriate supervision. Hotel quarantine is used in the minority of cases.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In states with dedicated centres, once the new buildings are constructed and the old ones repurposed, the hospitality sector and animal quarantine facilities will resume their pre-COVID activities, leaving new arrivals, positively-tested, and unvaccinated people to face quarantine in the new\/repurposed centres.<\/p>\n

To make things complicated, in addition to prison islands (like the facilities on Christmas Island) and apparently separate camps (like the Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre), several states have signed up to the Centres for National Resilience (CNR) \u2014\u00a0supposedly<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0three quarantine camps in three separate states (Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia).<\/p>\n

However, as we shall see state authorities confirm the existence of a fourth, existing CNR camp in the Northern Territory serving as the model for others. In addition, another non-CNR quarantine facility has been announced for the NT.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, no official details have come to light as to NSW\u2019s prospective quarantine centre(s). The only major media report appears to have been in June, when NSW\u2019s Premier, Dominic Perrottet,\u00a0credited<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>the hotel quarantine scheme and expressed an \u201cinterest\u201d in the possible construction of dedicated facilities.<\/p>\n

Given all of this mess and confusion, it is perhaps important to make a comprehensive list and analysis.<\/p>\n

CHRISTMAS ISLAND HANDOVER<\/h1>\n

There are at least three compounds on Christmas Island, the tropical territory 1,900km northwest of Australia, primed for quarantining humans. They are the\u00a0North West Point Immigration Detention Centre<\/strong>\u00a0(NWPIDC),\u00a0Phosphate Hill<\/strong>, and the so-called\u00a0Construction Camp Alternative Places of Detention<\/strong>\u00a0(APOD).<\/p>\n

The name of the NWPIDC is deceptive because non-immigrant\/refugee prisoners are also held there.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups have not only identified the appalling treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants at the facilities but\u00a0noted<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that those held indefinitely are\u00a0\u201cmixed in with about 200 men exiting prisons from across Australia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Nine sub-compounds make up the NWPIDC, including two isolation centres. The Department of Home Affairs\u00a0notes<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0corroded metal gutters and downpipes, degraded security grilles and roller doors, waterborne chlorides, and termite infestations.<\/p>\n

Phosphate Hill and APOD have capacities for over 700 and consist of transportable buildings across three sub-compounds codenamed Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. They suffer similar environmental degradation.<\/p>\n

Freedom of information requests\u00a0reveal<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that at the acknowledged start of the pandemic in January 2020, the Department of Home Affairs began the process (\u201cStep-in rights period\u201d) of temporarily handing over the NWPIDC, run by the private firms Serco and International Health and Medical Services,\u00a0to the Commonwealth to quarantine Australian citizens<\/strong>\u00a0evacuated from China.<\/p>\n

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Costing over $20m and indicative of the militarisation of containment management, the Christmas Island Maintenance Services took over operations in collaboration with the Australian Defence Force.<\/p>\n

By late-March 2020, the arrangement had changed to so-called \u201chot contingency,\u201d in which the above agencies could commandeer the facilities again at short notice.<\/p>\n

NORTHERN TERRITORY<\/h1>\n

As noted above, there are at least two quarantine camps in NT: the\u00a0National Resilience Centre<\/strong>\u00a0(NRC) in\u00a0Howard Springs<\/strong>, Darwin, and the Alice Springs Quarantine Facility.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five kilometres from Darwin, the Manigurr-ma accommodation village at Howard Springs is\u00a0now part of the NRC.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2014, the company INPEX announced that it had completed construction of the village, an ex-mining camp, as a temporary residency for labourers in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n

It did not, at that point, have any function as a quarantine centre. An industry report\u00a0says<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that the facility can house up to 3,500.<\/p>\n

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Early in the pandemic, the NT government\u00a0announced<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that Border Force and the Australian Defence Force would take repatriated Australians from China via RAAF planes to Manigurr-ma,\u00a0\u201ca perfect fit for quarantine purposes \u2026 The Manigurr-ma village site is a declared isolation zone under the Notifiable Diseases Act \u2013 that means any movement in or out is strictly controlled and enforceable by law.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The location has become\u00a0the subject<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of much controversy in recent weeks, including during the \u2018co-ordinated transfer\u2019 of positive cases from remote indigenous communities to the facility.<\/p>\n

Escapees have been tracked and apprehended by contact tracers and police forces.<\/p>\n

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